Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 42
42 any other religion, based on considerations of mercy and of wisdom, and offer a complete and a perfect solution for the needs and problems of every age. Moral Teaching Having related a few instances of the misconceptions which prevailed concerning the nature of- God and of His revelation, which the Promised Messiah removed, and of the higher teach- ings concerning these questions which he explained, I now ad- vert briefly to that portion of his teachings which related to other aspects of a man’s life. No religion can claim to be perfect unless it contains full teachings concerning human morals, for, although morals are not part of spirituality, yet they constitute the first step towards it and without perfect morals a man cannot attain to perfect spiri- tual development. The Promised Messiah has laid down won- derful principles concerning morals, and a study of those prin- ciples startles one into the admission that the world was merely groping in the dark in the search for moral principles. As it is not possible to attempt a detailed exposition of the whole question within the limits of this short paper I shall content myself with a brief reference to some matters of principle. The first matter relates to the definition of morals. He was the first to draw attention to the fact that the nature of moral qualities has been misconceived which, has led mankind into serious error and is responsible for long but futile discourses in religious books. People fail to realise that there is an intermediate stage between animalism and morals. Animalism signifies that con- dition of man in which, owing to defective training, disease, habit, ignorance or ill-will, he acts out of purely selfish motives for purely selfish ends, and has no regard or consideration for the feelings of others. But this is not the natural condition of man,